OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
All hope is gone this year for Democrats who pushed for a voter initiative that eliminates Republican voter integrity laws in Arizona.
The Arizona Supreme Court struck down a proposed ballot initiative that, if approved by voters, would have revoked a handful of election-integrity laws passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature.
“Titled Proposition 210, the now-failed ballot initiative had the potential to completely overhaul Arizona’s election laws, several of which the state legislature recently passed. The 26-page proposal is very similar to the federal HR 1, the legislation previously introduced by congressional Democrats that would have resulted in a federal takeover of elections,” The Federalist reported.
The outlet added: “Among the proposed changes to Arizona election law were same-day voter registration, a repealing of ‘Arizona’s ballot harvesting ban,’ and ‘voter registration with minimal identification, such as a pay stub.” Other provisions in the initiative would have disqualified “electors who don’t choose the president selected by Arizona’s presidential election,’ eliminated ‘the 30-day residency requirement in order to vote,” and made it “harder to cancel voter registrations of inactive voters,’ among others.”
Last year, the Arizona legislature passed a law that “requires the state to remove infrequent voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List, turning it into an ‘active’ early voting list.”
GOP Gov. Doug Ducey also signed a bill earlier this year requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship in order to vote in federal elections, which has been subject of a lawsuit filed against Arizona by the Biden Department of Justice.
According to the Associated Press, the state Supreme Court’s decision “upholds a lower court ruling issued hours earlier, in which Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Mikitish rejected thousands of signatures and said the initiative fell 1,458 signatures short of the 238,000 required to qualify for the ballot.”
“The judge’s Friday ruling reversed his own decision from a day earlier after the Supreme Court asked him to explain how he concluded that the initiative had enough valid signatures to qualify,” the AP report says. “When the judge upheld the measure the day before, [Chief Justice Robert] Brutinel had refused to accept it, saying [the] court was unable to determine exactly how Mikitish came to his determination that backers had collected enough valid signatures for the measure to appear on November’s ballot.”
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club applauded the ruling, saying it “vindicates what we knew all along: the radical Free and Fair election initiative lacked enough lawful signatures to qualify for the ballot.”
“The other side knew it too, and that is why their lawyers tried to get the court to adopt a rigged methodology to calculate the final number of valid signatures that would sneak their disqualified measure onto the ballot,” they added in a statement.
Democrats were not happy about the ruling.
“The court’s decision to invalidate the Free and Fair Elections Act is unprecedented – even in Arizona. Voters turned in 475,000 signatures – double the 237,645 requirements. But, Governor (Doug) Ducey’s expanded and stacked Supreme Court found a way to invalidate over 50% of the signatures for an initiative he openly, publicly opposed,” said Stacy Pearson, spokeswoman for the initiative backers.
“This ballot initiative – organized by local, grassroots groups and supported by voters across Arizona – would have protected the freedom to vote, limited the influence of money in politics, and prevented the legislature from overturning election results – as they tried to do after the 2020 presidential election,” Pearson added.
